The plot is empty bar the detritus of urban life. It was the site of the General Allenby Barracks during the British Mandate, but today it is an empty earth field at a Jerusalem crossroads, dotted with rubbish.

One day, if Donald Trump, gets his wish, it could be the location of the US embassy to Israel. Washington has leased the site since 1989 for a dollar a year.

US policy is going to be honest about a reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It has been the capital of the Israeli people since ancient times. It's undeniable, it's just a fact.US official

Mr Trump has long recognised this point. For all his campaign naivety and his team’s attempts to drain the swamp and upend politics, he knew what had to be done on the issue of Israel. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” he said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

He was not the first to make such a promise before the same audience. “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided,” said one of the 2008 presidential candidates.

No, not John McCain, the Republican runner, but Barack Obama. He followed George W Bush and Bill Clinton in promising to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

For the issue remains one of the few bipartisan issues in America’s polarised politics. Congress mandates it after all. In 1995 the Senate and the House of Representatives both overwhelmingly passed a law recognising Jerusalem as the capital and ordering the embassy to be moved. It built in a fudge, allowing presidents to delay the move every six months on the grounds of national security.

Which is where we are today. Each of Mr Trump’s predecessor’s have made good use of the waiver, reneging on their campaign promises as advisers warned of the risk of a Middle East conflagration if they pushed ahead.

We should know by now that this president is unimpressed by fudges and grey areas. He calls them “hypocrisy”. It is a large part of why he won the election.

It is why he is building the wall on the Mexican border – taking a consensus on security and turning it into bricks and mortar. No serious politician in the US argues for anything other than a secure southern border.

And it is why he got in a tangle over abortion when he said women who had illegal terminations should be punished, unpicking a carefully constructed conservative fudge.

Palestinians run from tear gas thrown by Israeli police outside Jerusalem's Old City on July 21, 2017Credit:
Mahmoud Illean/AP

So when it comes to Israel, it is no surprise that he is taking stated American policy and making it just as real as that corner of earth that once housed British soldiers. There are no waivers in Trumpland. Depending on your point of view, it makes Mr Trump the straight-shooter that America needs or the useful idiot who exposes the poverty of his country’s politics.

This time, the result will be ugly. Any sensible discussion of a Middle East peace process holds the sticky status of Jerusalem as the final step in a deal – not the first. Palestinians have every right to protest that their claim on their occupied capital of al-Quds, its Arabic name, has been denied. Violence is all but guaranteed.

Liberals will blame Mr Trump. But the truth is this is the inevitable result of an American policy, pursued by Democratic and Republican presidents, that rents land in Jerusalem and promotes and defends Israeli interests while claiming to be an honest broker in the region.

Optimists might hope that Mr Trump has finally exposed this sham, as he has done in other areas of politics, opening the door to creative thinking. It does after all make Israel’s policy of status quo by inertia more difficult perhaps forcing fresh attempts to find common ground.

But then again optimists have a bad track record when it comes to Israel and Palestine.